The continued war of words between the country’s football leaders is having a negative impact on the livelihood of footballers whose existence depends entirely on their god-given talent of chasing leather.
Yours truly happened to be in the mining town of Karibib last weekend for a live musical gig with my band where I stumbled upon a former Brave Warriors and Premiership all-rounder.
Eish… the boy is a pathetic figure and a pale shadow of the amazing young footballer who mesmerized defenders during his prime – he has now resorted to soothing his frustrations and sorrows with the sacred “haya water of moag” (chwalah).
Football administrators should take a leaf out of the recent court verdict in the protracted presidential election. It’s not always about who’s right but the consequences of any outcome should always enjoy sensitivity.
Fair enough, the ongoing saga between the country’s football governing body, the Namibia Football Association (NFA) could have been averted and resolved amicably had it not been for big egos and self-importance.
Law and justice have never been always the best of bedfellows although they are supposed to travel in tandem. It’s a well-documented secret that the illegal senseless grounding of the NPL was a well-orchestrated plot to keep NPL honcho Patrick Kauta at arm’s length from contesting the NFA presidency.
Yours truly is yet to see the blueprints from the potential presidential candidates as to why they feel they should be given a chance to spearhead our much-treasured national asset.
I’m not interested in hearing the same old nonsense of building state-of-the-art stadia in remote villages and all that sort of jazz. I would like to see somebody who comes up with a tangible manifesto on how to improve the current standard of our football and elevate it to semi-professional level.
Did I hear the chairperson of the NFA Normalisation Committee (NC) shouting loud that the lower tier leagues would start irrespective of the NPL status?… HELLO!!! You don’t send your kids to kindergartens or creches when primary schools are dysfunctional.
As a former premier league footballer, yours truly is well placed to state that the ultimate aim of every decent footballer is to compete against the best and the finest can only be found in the top tier league – the Premiership.
We need credible leaders with a clear vision, blokes that are not out to make a quick buck out of the Fifa dollars as has become customary practice. It’s no longer about service delivery. It’s all about the lucrative perks and glamour that come with being NFA president, collecting hefty S&T allowance.
Unfortunately, the applied secret ballot voting methodology is fragile and wide open to bribery and corruption. Regional representatives are prone to easy bribery.
This outdated practice will wheelbarrow unsuitable candidates into the plum position just because of their deep pockets.
Yours truly has it on good authority that bribes for votes are USUALLY not paid upfront – the greedy foot soldiers get handsomely sorted out after the positive results in favour of their personal preferred candidates, not necessarily those nominated by their respective regions.
I would like to urge football administrators to bury the hatchet in the interest of progress and move on – we want football to start, the players are now at their lowest ebb.
The boys have not only lost their basic income, they have been deprived of their dignity in society as they have been reduced to beggars and nobodies. I rest my case.